Tips on traveling for months at a time

In the January ’06 issue, page 50, Cecilia Morrissey shared extensive advice on arranging flights around the world. Here she offers advice on other things to consider when planning months-long travels.

GETTING TASKS DONE AT HOME WHILE AWAY — What about the mail and paying monthly household bills while you’re away? You can 1) find some victim to take care of this for you, 2) do most of the arranging before you leave or 3) do a combination of both.

Regarding the monthly bills, you can prepay your utilities, phone, cable, etc. Just figure out a monthly average and pay a chunk of money toward the bill just before you leave. With the mortgage, car insurance or your credit card this may not be practical, but you can arrange to have payments for these items taken automatically out of your checking account.

Forward your mail to a friend, and set him up with a box with a file for each month. Each month, he takes care of whatever business you have in the folder, like renewing your car registration or mailing a birthday card. You can have him either discard junk mail or just throw it in a box. Give him a key to your residence plus the name of someone who agrees to pay a repair bill if something needs to be repaired.

When you get home, bring your friend a present and take him out to a really nice dinner.

There are also professional mail-forwarding services that will stash your mail for the duration.

MONEY MATTERS — A spreadsheet is good for arranging your budget. You need to list plane tickets, train passes, car rental, prepaid tours, city pass schemes and a daily rate for food and lodging. Shopping and attractions are hard to figure, but try to estimate. (Will you do the opera in Paris? Bungee jumping in New Zealand? A week at a resort off the Great Barrier Reef?)

The daily rate for food and lodging is based on actual days of travel, omitting tours (if food is included) and long plane days. In Europe you will be lucky to escape on $150 a day for two for food and lodging, but only if you self-cater very often. In less-developed countries it will be less; if you stay in local hotels rather than high-end American-style chain hotels, you could easily get by on $75 a day for two. In South America in March ’06, I averaged $40 per night for a double in local hotels. Australia and New Zealand are somewhere in between Europe and the developing countries. Of course, lodging costs are higher in cities and tourist areas than in the countryside.

We take only $100 in travelers’ checks and tuck them away for emergencies. If we are going outside of Europe, we take about $20 in ones and about $200 in fives and 10s. We tuck these away for emergencies or for when we are in a country for a very brief time and don’t want to change money. Developing countries will still take dollars, but merchants expect crisp bills.

We take two cash machine debit cards (in case one is eaten by the machine) and two different credit cards, i.e., Visa and American Express.

TRAVEL INSURANCE — I recommend that you not leave home without travel insurance. On a recent trip we took to Antarctica, one of the tour members had to be air evacuated from a remote area.

An invaluable website is www.insuremytrip.com. They are travel insurance brokers, and you can pick and compare policies online. If you have good medical insurance that covers you worldwide, you don’t need an expensive clause for this. Probably what you need covered is medical evacuation and trip cancellation and theft or loss.

Remember that Medicare does not cover you outside of the U.S. You will have to buy some sort of combo package. If you don’t need life insurance, omitting this will save you money.

Your trip-cancellation insurance needs to cover the cost of prepaid plane and train tickets and any tours. Prepare for sticker shock.

TRANSPORTATION — Forget the car in Europe. It’s expensive, there is no place to park it and it will probably get broken into in France, Spain or Italy. Some companies won’t even rent cars in Eastern Europe.

Driving is stressful, but on the train you can watch the scenery, read, talk to the locals, have a picnic lunch and catch up on your sleep. Using the train also slows you down, because you often have to plan your trip around the train schedule.

Train stations in big cities are in themselves a wonderful resource. You can eat cheaply, store your luggage and use the information center for hotel and excursion bookings.

The train system is excellent in Western Europe and manageable in Eastern Europe. The bus systems are extensive. Look on the Eurail website (www.eurail.com) and explore the various schemes between countries. A country may also have a railpass for just that country.

In Eastern Europe, train travel is efficient only between large cities. It’s fun and cheap to take the bus. Many cities in Europe have public transportation passes and they are a good value.

In New Zealand, a car is almost a must. If you do both islands, you use one car on the South Island and another for the North Island. Check out Apex Rentals at www.apexrentals.co.nz.

Australia is a toss-up. I have done it with and without car, and since the distances are so great I like it best without car; otherwise, you drive and drive and drive. You can fly from city to city and take side trips — day tours or 2- or 3-day tours. If you do rent a car, I suggest searching the Web or consulting travel books for local companies and staying away from the big-name companies, which generally are more expensive.

There are a few long-distance train routes in Australia, but they seem to be pricey.

RENT A MOTORHOME? — Many years ago I rented a Volkswagen camper and toured Europe for the summer. This is okay if you don’t mind being outside of the tourist areas, but it is also more difficult to find a place to camp now that the Europeans use the campgrounds for weekend places. Besides, the driving makes it tough. If you camp, it’s just a very different experience.

There are motorhomes for rent in New Zealand and Australia. Once again, it just makes for a different experience, and it’s limiting if you want to do the cities. Overall, I feel it’s not the best way to see Europe.

LODGING — I typically reserve a room only for the couple of days after arriving, to recover from jet lag following a very long flight. I book on the Internet. Use the official tourism office of whatever country and go from there, or look for an indication that the accommodation belongs to a group or association.

If it’s summer in Europe, in the principal cities you will need to reserve. Look for 3-star or tourist-class hotels. Europe is clean and generally safe (more on safety later). Unless you want to splurge, you do not need to spend $150-plus per night on lodging.

When you arrive in a town, go to the tourist information center and talk cheap. They will help you get a room. Often, a room with a toilet and sink and with the shower down the hall is considerably less expensive than a room with a shower, although in Europe shared bathrooms are less common than in the past.

Try to stay in smaller towns and take the train to the city for the day. In Austria, Germany, Holland and Switzerland, we can usually stay for $60-$90 per night (with breakfast). This will get you a clean, small (sometimes very small) room with facilities en suite, plus a TV, probably in a family-run place. Right now the exchange rate is brutal, so after you figure your costs for Europe, add at least 20%.

It’s also a good idea to take the rate quoted in euros and convert it to dollars so that you will have a realistic idea about the price. A simple website to help you convert any currency into U.S. dollars at today’s rate is www.xe.com.

Try to stay for three nights, and ask for the 3-night rate. When you arrive at the hotel, always ask to see the room. If you don’t like it, ask to see another. The hotel will usually help you book a room in the next town, particularly if you have some hotel names and phone numbers.

In Europe there are some hotel schemes, coupons, etc. These are usually for motel-style places with little or no character, places that are probably run by hotel chain employees, and for what you get they’re overpriced. You might as well be staying in your hometown city in the U.S.

In Europe, consider building in at least one week on your own in an apartment. It’s easy to do using the Internet. I’ve rented apartments in Berlin, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, New Zealand and Argentina. Spain is easy for this as well. Look for accommodations that indicate kitchenette, because you will love having a kitchen for a few days. Australia has many, many Internet sites for apartments. Consider renting an apartment for a week or two on the Gold Coast or south of Sydney at one of the beach towns.

CECILIA MORRISSEY

Port Townsend, WA

More tips from Cecilia next month.